Exploring Nature in New Hampshire

Mid June Flowers

Imagine a tree 100 feet high and 50 wide full of orchids and you’ll have a good idea what the northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) looks like in full bloom. Of course the flowers are not orchids, but they’re very beautiful nevertheless. At 1-2 inches across they are also large, and so are the heart shaped leaves. These trees have long, bean like seed pods and when I was a boy we called them string bean trees. Luckily we were never foolish enough to eat any of the “beans” because they’re toxic. The word catalpa comes from the Native American Cherokee tribe. Other tribes called it catawba.

For those who have never seen a catalpa leaf, here is my camera sitting on one. I took this photo last fall.

And since we’re thinking about orchids, here is our old friend heal all (Prunella lanceolata,) whose tiny hooded flowers also remind me of orchids. The plant is also called self-heal and has been used since ancient times. It is said to cure everything from sore throats to heart disease, and that’s how it got its common name. Some botanists believe that there are two varieties of the species; Prunella vulgaris from Europe, and Prunella lanceolata from North America. Native Americans drank a tea made from the plant before a hunt because they believed that it helped their eyesight.

Brown knapweed (Centaurea jacea) has started to bloom. I’ve always thought that knapweed flowers were very beautiful but unfortunately this plant is also from Europe and according to the U.S. Forest Service is a “highly invasive weed that is capable of forming large infestations under favorable conditions.” The large infestations crowd out native plants including those used for forage on pasture lands, so it is not well liked by ranchers. The brown bracts below the flower are what give the plant its common name.

The unusual twin flowers of partridge berry (Mitchella repens) fuse at the base and share one ovary. They will become a single small red berry that has two dimples that show where the flowers used to be. Partridgeberry is one of the lowest growing evergreen plants on the forest floor, hardly growing more than 3 or 4 inches high. Plants have a vining habit but don’t climb. Instead they form dense mats by spreading their trailing stems out to about a foot from the crown. Roots will often form at leaf nodes along the stems and start new plants. Ruffed grouse, quail, turkeys, skunks, and white-footed mice eat the berries.

June is when our native mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) blooms. The pentagonal flowers are very unusual because each has ten pockets in which the male anthers rest under tension. When a heavy enough insect lands on a blossom the anthers spring from their pockets and dust it with pollen. You can see flowers with relaxed anthers in the upper center and left parts of this photo. Once released from their pockets the anthers don’t return to them.

What once may have been five petals are now fused into a single, cup shaped blossom. A side view of a single mountain laurel blossom shows the unusual pockets that the anthers rest in. Another old name for mountain laurel is spoon wood, because Native Americans used the wood to make spoons and other small utensils.

I saw a beautiful bicolor hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) flower one day. Though for many years all I ever saw were white flowered hedge bindweeds these bicolor ones have become more numerous over the last few years. Bindweeds are perennial and morning glories are annuals and one good way to tell them apart is by their leaves; morning glory (Ipomoea) has heart shaped leaves and bindweed has arrowhead shaped triangular leaves.

This is the first time that red sandspurry (Spergularia rubra) has appeared on this blog, maybe because it is so small I’ve never noticed it. The tiny flowers aren’t much bigger than a BB that you would use in an air rifle, but grow in groups that are large enough to catch your eye. I find them growing in sand at the edge of roads and parking lots.

The pretty little flowers of red sandspurry are pinkish lavender, so I’m not sure where the red in the common name comes from. This plant was originally introduced from Europe in the 1800s. An odd fact about the plant is that it has reached many states on the east and west coasts but doesn’t appear in any state along the Mississippi river except Minnesota. It must have been introduced on both coasts rather than first appearing in New England and then crossing the country like so many other invasive plants have.

Silky dogwood has just started blooming. One way to tell that it’s a dogwood that you’re looking at is to count the flower petals. Dogwoods have 4 and viburnums have 5. What I like most about this shrub are its berries. They start off white and slowly turn deep blue, but for a while they are blue and white and remind me of Chinese porcelain. In fact I’ve always wondered if the Chinese got the idea for blue and white porcelain from these berries. This shrub is also called swamp dogwood. I usually find it growing on the banks of rivers and streams.

I saw these beautiful wine red columbines in a friend’s garden. I think they probably started life as flashy bicolor hybrids and now the seedlings reverted back to one of the parents.

Five pale yellow heart shaped petals surround a center packed with 30 stamens and many pistils in a sulfur cinquefoil blossom (Potentilla recta.) Close to the center each petal looks like it was daubed with a bit of deeper yellow. This is a very rough looking, hairy plant that was originally introduced from Europe. It grows in unused pastures and along roadsides but it is considered a noxious weed in some areas because it out competes grasses. I like seeing its pale yellow flowers among the purple maiden pinks and white ox-eye daisies.

The tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) gets its common name from the way its flowers resemble tulips, at least from the outside. As the photo shows, the inside looks very different. The fruit is cone shaped and made up of a number of thin, narrow scales which eventually become winged seeds. Another name for this tree is yellow poplar. It is the tallest hardwood tree known in North America, sometimes reaching 200 feet. Native Americans made dugout canoes from tulip tree trunks.

I love all flowers but some seem to have a little extra spark of life that makes me want to kneel before them and get to know them a little better. One of those is the lowly crown vetch (Securigera varia.) I know it’s an invasive species that people seem to either despise or ignore but it’s also beautiful. In fact if I had to design a beautiful flower, I don’t think I could do better than this.

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you. ~George Washington Carver

Catalpa trees are so messy! I loved them as a kid, we had two in our yard and our neighbors had one. Now that I’m an adult, I understand why my mom can’t stand them…..sticky blossoms tracked in the house, the beans all over the yard and the huge leaves to rake come fall! They make great shade and the flowers falling look like snow. Mom can’t stand them, but can’t bear to cut them down either.

Thank you Jocelyn. I was going to mention how messy they were but forgot. Your mother is right but I also understand why she doesn’t cut them down. Weeping willows are also a messy tree and nobody cuts them down either!

The Silky Dogwood flowers are very similar to the Grey Dogwood flowers that are just starting to bloom in our garden. I think Grey Dogwood is an underused shrub that can be pruned very nicely as a small tree. The flowers are not so showy like Cornus florida but they are attractive, especially when they are very numerous as they can become with an established plant. The white berries are so popular with birds that they disappear almost immediately after ripening. They are an important fall migration food.

We have a lot of gray dogwood here too but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used in a garden. I do know that the birds love both them and silky dogwood berries. Cedar waxwings will do just about anything for fermented berries!

Beautiful! I just love your posts! I don’t think I have a favourite shot – they are all perfect.
We have Large Bindweed (Calystegia sylvatica), Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) and Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) and all are white except that the Field Bindweed is either white or, pink with broad white stripes. Most flowers in our area (and in our garden) are the pink and white ones. Your shot looks exactly like the ID photo in my book for Sea Bindweed(Calystegia Soldanella) which likes to grow on sand and shingle. The leaves are kidney shaped and fleshy and not arrow-shaped. I wonder why your Hedge Bindweed is developing Field or Sea Bindweed characteristics.

Thank you Clare. I see room for improvement but I’m glad you like them.
I think the bindweeds probably cross pollinate and create natural hybrids. That’s the only answer that makes any sense because it’s been a slow process. I never saw any pink in the flowers until just the last few years. Now I see them here and there but the white ones are still easier to find.

I’ve only seen one egg mass and it was on May 23. The eggs are a creamy white. My “Caterpillars of Eastern N.A says their range includes southern Canada to Florida and Texas, but are currently absent from New England. So, maybe there’s hope at some time in the future.

Weeds can be very pretty and I think that’s why many of them were brought here in the first place. I think the bindweed you mean is probably field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) which is a different plant. Once you have it in a lawn it can be nearly impossible to get rid of.

Beautiful flowers. In the U.K. they make little sugar shapes for confectionery that look exactly like the Kalmia buds. It always looks as if someone has passed it by with a bag of icing (sorry, frosting to you.) Amelia

Allen, this is your most beautiful and informative collection yet. Love the wine red columbines. The mountain laurel is out in full force at the moment on the trails I ride, it looks like drifts of snow amid the green.

What can I say? Another amazing post full of photos of beautiful flowers, and interesting information about them. I wish that mountain laurel grew here, but sadly, it doesn’t. My favorite is the catalpa, it does grow here now, I’m seeing it everywhere.

But, that brings up something else, I don’t remember ever seeing it as a kid, or sycamore trees either. Both are so different than other trees, they do stand out from all the rest. Some of the specimens that I see now had to have been growing when I was younger, how could I have missed them? Is noticing things like that something that comes with age? I wonder.

Thanks Jerry! I know what you mean. I see many things that I never saw when I was younger, including sycamores. I think we do become more observant with age, or maybe it’s just because we move more slowly and care more about what we see.

wonderful collection of flowers. I saw partidgeberry flowers for the first time this year; very excited.

You can tell how bad the winter was here in NJ by how much sandspurrey there is. It grows where the road salt has killed off the grass. I read that there didn’t used to be name for “pink”, it was just light red. The name supposedly came from the flower, Pink, and not the other way around. So perhaps that’s why red sandspurrey is red.

We have lots of catalpa here in NJ, supposedly both northern and southern, but I keep running into the southern, with the notched lower flower petal. It was neat to see some northern ones.

I haven’t seen brown knapweed before. My usual knapweed is the spotted, and I haven’t seen it blooming yet.

I loved Mountain Laurel as a kid. We’d stick the flowers to our clothing (and fingers).

I haven’t found a bicolored hedge bindweed, only white, though I found a pink field bindweed once.

I just this year learned to recognize silky dogwood, and now I see it everywhere.

My husband once dug up a sulfur cinquefoil and brought it home to show me because he thought the leaves looked like marijuana!

Thanks you Sara. I’m glad you saw some partridge berry. It’s flowers are very unusual.
I’ve noticed that sandspurry will also grow where grass has just died. I’ve seen it in places where no salt is used.
I’ve read that pinks got their name from the way their petals look like they were cut out with pinking shears, but I don’t know how true that is.
We see silky dogwood wherever there is water here, especially along the river.
Your husband was right!
There are many invasives that are beautiful and that’s actually why a lot of them ended up here.

Gorgeous shots, Allen. It sure looks like we have moved into prime time for the flowering plants that you love to observe. I particularly liked the mountain laurel, with its unusual shaped flowers and beautiful colors.

Thanks Mike. Yes, in June you might have several species starting to bloom on any given day, so it’s hard to keep up!
I like the mountain laurel too. I can’t think of another flower or even flower bud that looks anything like it.

A beautiful collection of summer color! I especially like the catalpa, so pretty. But the mountain laurel is by far my favorite. I know of an area in WIlton where it grows en mass and I make it a point to go there this time of year to get my fill for the season (as if one could ever get their fill). Strange how so many noxious weeds have such lovely flowers. If I could get the crown vetch to grow where I want it to, I’d be happy to have it take over the area.

Thanks Laura. I’ve always liked Mountain laurel too. There is a rail trail where it grows like you describe it and that’s where I go to see it. I agree-it’s hard to see enough!
Watch out for the vetch. it might also take over areas that you don’t want it to! You could try collecting some seed pods and scattering them where you want it to grow though.